League of Legends Quicky

As some of you might know, I’ve been tooling around on the League of Legends beta for a few weeks now, and I have a few more opinions.  First of all, I gotta say, the game has grown on me a lot more and I’m definitely enjoying it.  Recently I’ve started to play with two or three friends from high school.  It’s really nice being able to play with people you know.  We just sort of have some hidden agreement to pop on a bit every night and play.  Playing with friends means you can coordinate much easier and set up some really satisfying team kills.

For those that may have tried League of Legends, I’ll tell you my favorite champions so far.  I tend to stick with tank characters, soaking up the damage and throwing a stun or heal out there every so often.

My favorite champion has to be Tryndamere.  He’s a bit more of a damage dealer than tank, but I just really like his play-style.  He can attack heavily and critical hit often, has a minor (MINOR) self heal, a spinning slash attack that is good for hurting enemy players, destroying waves of minions, and escaping, a shout skill that weakens and slows enemy players, and finally a last resort skill that makes him unable to die for a few seconds, perfect to finish off someone or escape.

My second favorite is Alistar, the minotaur.  Alistar is a true tank, with high armor and health.  It’s fun to play him because his skills let you push lanes with minions, healing them, and then destroying enemy turrets.  His skills consist of an area of effect stun, a damaging headbutt that sends players flying, a short area heal, and a last resort skill that removes debuffs, increases armor, and increases attack power for a few seconds.  He’s fun to soak up damage while your teammates unleash everything onto the enemy players.

So again, I recommend you guys check out the game and maybe sign up for the beta!

http://www.leagueoflegends.com/

Gamescom Final Fantasy XIV Alpha Gameplay Videos

I knew Final Fantasy XIV was going to make an appearance at Gamescom this week, but I didn’t know attendees would be playing an alpha version!

Here are some videos I found, courtesy of 1UP.com and Gametrailers.com, enjoy!

Did I mention I’m a Golden Sun fan?

As many of you may know, I’m a huge RPG fan.  No RPG collection is complete without the two Golden Sun games.  Imagine my surprise and delight when Nintendo announced a third game, Golden Sun DS at E3!  Now, I’m sure many of you have seen the trailer, I did too, countless times in fact.  But what I did not see, until recently anyway, was a certain video that shows someone playing the limited demo at the show.  In this demo we get a glimpse of the battle graphics, and boy are they pretty.  Check it out, it sure made me even more excited!

… I want shelves, dammit.

I’ve been ordering games on and off over the summer with bits of my paycheck, but haven’t much been bothering to put them in any sort of place–just kind of strewing them all over my living room. My OCD tendencies finally took over and I just had to go through and sort everything into console divisions and alphabetically. Unfortunately, despite my love of order and displaying things… the only things I have to hold my games are some short, small shelves covered by glass and an old chest. Trying to fit a ton of games, consoles, controllers, and other accessories into a space that small… doesn’t exactly work. Just trying to get things out and put them away is like an awkward 3D jigsaw, and I’m honestly sick of this little old storage song and dance.

I want shelves, dammit!

Gaming is Widespread

So, yesterday I managed to go through three airports, encountering various staff and other passengers on the way. That morning I woke up, needed something to wear and thought to myself, “Eh, my Zelda shirt is clean. Let’s go with that one…”. It’s simple, black, with a golden triforce on it. I hadn’t taken into account that, at this point, it’s a fairly recognizable symbol, and that I would probably be brought into a lot of uncomfortable conversations. I hadn’t taken into account exactly how uncomfortable some of these would be.

Wii Sports Resort, finally!

As many of you know, Wii Sports Resort came out on Sunday.  I, of course, quickly ran to my local Gamestop to get in on the buzz.

Let me tell you, for all of you who might’ve been skeptical of the Wii Motion Plus or Wii Sports Resort, they definitely deliver.

I’m just going to go through a basic rundown of each sport.

League of Legends Beta

A few days ago I was lucky enough to get a beta key for League of Legends.

For those that don’t know, Leage of Legends is a competitive online game from Riot Games that is similar to DOTA, the custom map from Warcraft 3.  The basic premise of the game is to choose a “Champion” and then defend your base alongside your teammates while also pressuring and attacking the enemy team’s base.  Champions level up as they kill minions (auto-spawn NPCs that serve to attack the opposing team), creeps (neutral monsters on the map), and Champions from the opposing team.  A game is won by defeating the nexus of the opposing team.

I played a few rounds this weekend and I was overall pleased.  The gameplay in League of Legends takes place in an RTS-esque view and has a graphical style that seems like a cross of Warcraft 3 and the new Prince of Persia.  There is a vast array of Champions, including assassins, archers, melee damage dealers, tanks, mages, and support classes.  Each Champion has its own feel with unique skills available to them as they level up.  As you score kills, you also accumulate gold coins which you can then use to purchase equipment for your Champion, strengthening them.  I mainly stuck with melee damage dealers in the few games I played, and tended to focus my gold coins on buying items that increase my attack speed and offer me life-stealing.  I wasn’t very good at fighting other players, I usually got destroyed by archers or mages, but I did manage to help my team by sneaking by and damaging the enemy’s structures.

I had fun during my short time with Leage of Legends, though playing on the same map did grow stale after a while (only one map was available for beta play).  I haven’t heard of a release date yet, but I have heard that League of Legends will be free, to play and to download, with a collector’s edition available in retail for purchase, which simply unlocks some things for players automatically instead of having to unlock them over time.

Check out the game’s site for more info and a chance at a beta key: http://www.leagueoflegends.com/

Final Fantasy V Advance Mini Review

I consider myself to be a very big fan of RPGs and especially all Final Fantasy games. You’d think any self-respecting fan would be able to say he has completed every Final Fantasy then. Well, much to my humiliation, I haven’t accomplished that just yet. For the most part, I’ve beaten every main entry in the Final Fantasy series, as well as many of the spin-off games. However, until a couple weeks ago, I never got very far in Final Fantasy V. Determined, I hunted every last Gamestop in my area until I finally found a used copy (ew) of Final Fantasy V Advance on the GBA. Glad that I didn’t need to deal with emulators or the very clunky PSX version, I was determined to finally beat Final Fantasy V. I had alot of time to play since there was alot of travel time when I was vacationing in Greece.

So ANYWAY, onto my thoughts of the game! (very VERY minor spoilers)

Gaming Alone in a Crowd

This appears to be a running theme: more college stuff!

Last year, my gaming scene at college was a little sparse and unvaried. My college’s internet is stuck in the stone age, so online gaming (PC or console) was completely out of the question. I wouldn’t call myself a social gamer, so this didn’t affect me too heavily (with the exception that it largely charged my decision to quit/extended hiatus from Final Fantasy XI for the last year or so). But internet or no internet, college is going to affect gaming in one way or another; and it isn’t just the workload and responsibilities that cut down on it.

Last year, I lived in a small, close-knit dorm (though I’m not exactly sure you could call it that small… it was three floors with a good number of rooms on each floor, but compared to universities, it was pretty tiny). I got pretty close with a lot of the people on my floor (because, magically, the college seemed to lump the nerds together), and this lead to a lot of late night hang-outs and daily visits. As one of our friends brought his Xbox 360 to college, we wound up naturally gathering around it wherever it went, begging to borrow games from anyone in the building who would let us. After blazing through Call of Duty 4, Call of Duty: World at War, Left 4 Dead, Bioshock, and Dead Space, we realized that we needed a more substantial way to keep our game library up… and a joint subscription to Gamefly was born. But social gaming isn’t the topic of this post; this post is about the un-social side of games, the side that tends to experience a drought when you’re living around a group of people actively interested in (or even not interested at all in) video games.

Managing Game Buying as a Poor College Kid

I guess I should start this off with a little explanation of my money situation.

At the beginning of this summer I began working the position of a temp employee at a company, but I was working Mon-Fri, 8-10 hours a day. Since I can’t maintain a consistent job like this at college and am perpetually poor (yay, overloading my own class schedule!) having money kind of blew my mind, and I felt like I wanted to make my first purchase worth it, so I picked up a PS3 (which I have never regretted for a second, by the way) kind of on a whim after I got my first paycheck. I also pre-ordered the Dissidia: Final Fantasy PSP bundle, since the PSP finally has enough games I’m interested in to merit picking one up. Since then, I’ve slowed down quite a bit and have been spreading my paycheck-spending out, and that’s going to be especially important now… since I don’t have a job anymore.